(L+CR) Gakkou Gurashi

[Yoxall]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I agree that Kurumi looks a bit better and more mature in the manga.

Pretty funny that the anime's blu-ray and dvd covers are actually using the manga's character design instead of the anime's character design. Gives us some more of that delicious Sadoru Chiba art.

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[Iby]

Don't they use covers illustrated by the original illustrator for BDs/DVDs most of time though?

[Yoxall]

I guess it depends on the studio then, since the BDs/DVDs I bought so far used anime designs instead of original designs. In any case, both anime and manga designs for Gakkou Gurashi were good, so I wouldn't mind either way.

[risingstar3110]

I think every character sorta took some hit and lost some of their character depth due to the anime adaptation.

Miki lost her character development (from an outsider to be part of the gang) and the growing admiration toward her senpai, Kurumi in particular. Kurumi lost her vulnerable side through the home visit (+ the gun incident), and her trait of readily self-sacrificing for the goods of her friends. Yuuri is her point of breaking down and how the toll of trying to stay sane in the apocalypse world could took out even the best of them. And Yuki, especially Yuki. The anime only showed her fake outer shell, and didn't even touch much on Yuki's true character.

So much that I will class the anime adaptation as shounen, while the manga definitely seinen. As the later is darker, more brutal and has quite a lot more depth

[Hypernova]

Another series that likely won't get another season because they fucked up the first so monumentally... When will they learn that you don't fix what ain't broken, especially over a dog. The way the school arc ended in the manga was much better by every possible metric.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

Another series that likely won't get another season because they fucked up the first so monumentally... When will they learn that you don't fix what ain't broken, especially over a dog. The way the school arc ended in the manga was much better by every possible metric.

That depends on the definition of "better", and whether the viewer was emotionally invested by the end, which I'm of the opinion that the anime was more about prompting said emotional investment rather than the overall despair of the manga. A lot of people I know seem quite impressed by the ending overall, and also wouldn't really know if the anime "fucked up" if they haven't read the manga. As a stand-alone work, the anime does its job well.

Also, if the mangaka himself (who's the writer for the anime) determined that the anime was better served within its 12-episode length by the changes, then why not?

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

That depends on the definition of "better", and whether the viewer was emotionally invested by the end, which I'm of the opinion that the anime was more about prompting said emotional investment rather than the overall despair of the manga. A lot of people I know seem quite impressed by the ending overall, and also wouldn't really know if the anime "fucked up" if they haven't read the manga. As a stand-alone work, the anime does its job well.

For the producers' stand point, the only definition of "better" that matters is how well it sells. There are some exceptions to that but in general, that's the indicator. Producing anime isn't cheap. It literally costs millions of yen, and no one waste that much for the lulz.

Now, if you ask me why this anime in particular didn't sell, I'd say it was because it diverged too much from the manga. Manga sales did increase during the anime broadcast which suggests the audience had an interest in the story. What the audience didn't seem to like is the way the anime told it.

Also, if the mangaka himself (who's the writer for the anime) determined that the anime was better served within its 12-episode length by the changes, then why not?

Because it was a failure.

[Triple_R]

Commercially speaking, an anime adaptation has two main jobs:

1. Sell people on the source material (in this case, increase sales for the manga).

2. Sell people on the anime itself (DVD/Blu-Ray sales)


From what I've read, Gakkou Gurashi anime seems to be succeeded on No. 1 but failing on No. 2. So going by that it was good enough to interest people in the source material, but it wasn't good enough to sell the anime itself to a nicely large number of people.

My guess is that most anime-only viewers do in fact like the anime, but maybe not enough to pay those DVD/Blu-Ray prices. Meanwhile, a lot of source material fans were probably ticked off by the many large divergences and hence don't feel like the anime becomes an essential part of their full Gakkou Gurashi collection.


Speaking personally, I like the anime, but they did make a lot of changes from the manga. Some of these changes were very large, and most struck me as unnecessary (some changes are necessary just to adjust to the new medium).

There's a few specific areas where if the anime had stuck closer to the manga, I think it might have sold better. Those changes are in spoiler space below:

Spoiler for What Gajjou Gurashi should have kept:

1. Taroumaru shouldn't have dominated as much as he did. He's very nearly an anime-only character. I've honestly never seen an anime-only character become this prominent in an anime adaptation. Very questionable change that probably shouldn't have happened. I can maybe see making him a pet dog that Yuki always had, but he shouldn't have been as plot-relevant as he was.

2. Throwing Miki into the first episode. This made the anime narrative feel more uneven, and probably ended up hurting Miki's anime character on the whole.

3. Pretty much completely leaving out Chapter 9 of the manga, including Kurumi visiting her home. This was an excellent chapter that should have been adapted.

4. Maybe have kept the helicopter arc as the main lead-up to the graduation rather than what the anime went with in having zombies storm the school to threaten medicine retrieval. Probably the most understandable change of the 4 though.

If the anime had kept to the manga in these 3/4 ways, it probably would have appealed more to manga fans and sold better as an anime. A slight softening of the narrative was fine, but I think the little bits of added SoL did this. I still liked the pool episode (Episode 9, IIRC), and that probably could have remained while still staying true to the manga in the 3/4 ways I outlined above.

[Sheba]

The anime felt like a fanfic with Taroumaru as the OC Sue. It's no wonder Anonymous sarcastically called it Taroumaru Gurashi.

[justsomeguy]

I've always wondered jokingly about how a merger of the moe slice-of-life genre and the zombie apocalypse genre would end up; leave it to a Nitroplus writer to actually do it, and do it well. What I liked about the show was that it really captured the sentimentality of the girls-in-a-club story with the tension of a zombie show. What I did not like was the overemphasis on Taroumaru.... Even if the mangaka was the one who wrote the show, that can only leave me wondering how the show could have covered the story more completely if not for the time wasted on the dog.

Score: 7.5/10. Very likeable, but points off for the decision of having an anime-only non-human character steal time and focus instead of being more faithful to the source.

[Ghostfriendly]

I don't feel Taromaru took too much focus away from the girls; I never forgot that they were human characters and he was an animal.

Having Taromaru save Miki and Yuki, when he had already attacked Kurumi, was plain illogical though. And the ending would have had much more impact if the girls had needed to put Taromaru down in the end, letting go of comfortable sentimentality, in order to survive.

[Iby]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

leave it to a Nitroplus writer

I'm really tired of that already but there weren't any Nitroplus writers working on either anime or manga.

[justsomeguy]

Originally Posted by Iby

I'm really tired of that already but there weren't any Nitroplus writers working on either anime or manga.

According to Wikipedia, the author is part of Nitroplus, and their company name also appears in the show's copyright.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

According to Wikipedia, the author is part of Nitroplus, and their company name also appears in the show's copyright.

He's not part of Nitroplus. He was just contracted by Nitroplus to write the manga (and the anime).

That's what I heard at least.

[justsomeguy]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

He's not part of Nitroplus. He was just contracted by Nitroplus to write the manga (and the anime).

That's what I heard at least.

So he's not a "Nitroplus writer," just a writer working for Nitroplus. Got it, thanks.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

So he's not a "Nitroplus writer," just a writer working for Nitroplus. Got it, thanks.

Well, it's a different working model. Also, when you say "Nitroplus writer" you probably mean a writer who is representative of a style you associate with Nitroplus. I'm not sure that would apply in this case.

[justsomeguy]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Well, it's a different working model. Also, when you say "Nitroplus writer" you probably mean a writer who is representative of a style you associate with Nitroplus. I'm not sure that would apply in this case.

Well sure, but if Nitroplus made the decision to hire Norimitsu, I would expect that would mean that the company had a hand in creating Gakkou Gurashi along with its themes and ideas. I'm not familiar enough with them to associate any particular style to them, other than that their material is dark even outside of Urobuchi's writing. Presenting a moe slice-of-life girls' club in a zombie apocalypse setting does strike me as something Nitroplus would do rather than other groups, hence what I wrote.

[Hmm....]

Perhaps, Nitroplus want to try something new (aka not their style), that's why they outsource it to Norimitsu.

However, since Nitroplus name is in the Credit, I don't think it's wrong to called this Nitroplus's work per se.

[Iby]

I've read the article where the interviewer has discussed the question about why they like to write their company name in brackets next to the other people's name and with Nitroplus producer (Digitarou) and his answer was "to promote our company of course". So here's your answer.

Also Kaihou was collaborating with Nitroplus for quite a long time already (and has also written Jingai Makyou under a different pen name) but he just prefer to work as a freelancer and doesn't want to be tied to just one company.

Originally Posted by https://twitter.com/nk12/status/349845090535088128

@aizen_423 @shishioh_vj いやほんとわかりにくくてすいません。ニトロ様には本当にお世話になっておりまして、これからも、お手伝い させていただく感じですが、海法自身はフリーランスで社員ではなく、よそのお仕事も色々やっております。「 ヒットマン」とかですね。

And about the involvement of Nitroplus with the original Gakkou Gurashi! manga - here you go:

Originally Posted by https://twitter.com/nk12/status/349841346133114880

@aizen_423 @shishioh_vj わかりにくくてすいません。ニトロプラス様とは沢山お仕事をさせていただいておりますが、社員ではありませ ん。「がっこうぐらし！」はニトロ様から依頼をいただいてニトロ様と協力しつつ海法が書いているという感じのニュアンスです。

[mangatron]

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